The CBI has appointed its senior counsel Monika Kohli as the chief prosecutor after framing of charges against JKLF chief Muhammad Yasin Malik in the much-publicised cases related to the abduction of former union home minister Mufti Muhammad Sayeed’s daughter, and assassination of four IAF personnel in Srinagar three decades ago, officials said.
Kohli, a leading lawyer, has been representing the CBI as a retainer counsel in the High Court for the last seven years and had successfully opposed bail to Malik in the two sensational cases which had taken place in 1989-90 when militancy broke out in the valley.
The officials said the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) has conveyed the approval of the competent authority for engagement of Kohli as senior special prosecutor and S K Bhat (retired ALA/CBI) as special public prosecutor in place of Pavitar Singh Bhardwaj and BansiLalBhat for a period of three years. Malik is presently lodged in Delhi’s Tihar jail after he was arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in April 2019 in connection with a militant funding case, a month after his group was banned by the central government.